The costs of EU-patents: The annual charges are determined

von Dr. Meyer-Dulheuer & Partners LLP

In the year 2016 the highly discussed EU unitary patent shall take effect. Here, we’ve already discussed about the problems which still hinder the realization. A major point for discussion are the costs of such an EU patent. For a long time the states of the EU haven’t agreed about the height of the costs.

The annual charges are scheduled

On the 24th June 2015 the closer committee of the member states at the European Patent Office (EPO) finally decided how high the costs for the maintenance of the new EU unitary patent shall be. The states decided to adapt the costs to the current price for the maintenance of the so called batch patent (the present method) of the four most active EU state members in terms of patent applications. The leading countries are the Netherlands, France, Germany and Great Britain.

According to this calculation the renewal charges for the EU unitary patent will aggregate to a total of approximately 42.000 until 44.000 Euros during the whole duration of the patent (20 years). This would mean annual charges of 2400 Euros. For small and medium-sized companies, but also for universities and organizations which aren’t acquisitive there shall be minor discounts on the costs of the patent for the first 10 years.

The charges for the maintenance will only be fined after an effective grant of the patent. Mostly, this moment is achieved primal after 4 or 5 years.

The costs of the EU unitary patent in comparison to the costs of the previous method

In the debate about the introduction of the EU unitary patent you often hear the argument that its costs shall be much cheaper than the costs of the previous method for a patent in Europe. But how is this comparison calculated?

Like it was determined in the “True Top 4 solution”, the maintenance of the EU unitary patent shall cost up to 44.000 Euros during the whole term ...